Posted: Mar 7, 2008, 12:57 PM CST
Thu Mar 6, 3:24 PM ET
PAU, France (AFP) - The mayor of a French village has issued
a decree banning residents from dying in his territory
unless they own a spot in the overcrowded cemetery.
"It is forbidden for any person not having a plot in the cemetery
to die on the territory of the village," the mayor of
the southwestern village of Sarpourenx wrote in a decree
that warns of "severe punishment" for offenders.
Mayor Gerard Lalanne told AFP he had taken the radical measure
to protest against a legal ruling preventing him
from enlarging the burial ground in the village of 260 people.
"The first dead person to come along,
I'll send him to the state's representative," he said.
Lalane said he had been inspired by the mayor of
another French village, Cugnaux, who had also
outlawed death as a protest last year and who thus won
the right to enlarge the village's cemetery.